


Soul-tied Eyes (working title)

by Corvus Dempsey (androGenious), Noah (androGenious)



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-07-21 09:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19999771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androGenious/pseuds/Corvus%20Dempsey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/androGenious/pseuds/Noah
Summary: A horrible accident.A chance encounter.Wrought by anxiety and disconnect from the world, James Phoenix is a mess in every sense of the word.Loras Young keeps his head in the clouds, and his hands on a camera -- photographing the world but separate from it all the same.Then tragedy strikes, and the two are brought together in the most unlikely of ways.James, a man more suited to late nights and later mornings should never have been out on the street that early.Loras should have never been in Brooklyn altogether.One moment tied their souls together, and even as Loras lies in a hospital bed, his conscience and soul is drawn to James.Will they be able to save each other, or will they both submit to the fire?This is an actual book (to be published sometime early 2020!) and i need to put it somewhere where i can force myself to put out regular chapters or else I'll never finish it. So enjoy folks! I'm gonna try to have chapters out every wednesday and sunday. spam me if i miss a day please.





	1. Paths Crossed

Oh god… Did that really just happen?

The scene was a mess. The wreckage still smoking from the disastrous collision that happened right before James’ eyes just moments before, car horns sounding off at random, sirens getting louder and louder in the distance and… 

Is that blood?

He felt like he couldn’t get enough air in, everything was too bright, toy,o loud, too much. He couldn’t handle it. He was hyperventilating. But somehow, he couldn’t make himself move from where he stood -- frozen -- pale and shaking as everything happened around him. His mouth tasted like chalk, his eyes burned. Someone shouted, maybe at him -- he didn’t know -- but still, he couldn’t force himself to move. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that he must be having a panics, attack, but at this point he couldn’t even grasp hold of any coherent thoughts, much less take himself through any grounding techniques. Then someone was grabbing his arm, jostling him.,

“Sir! Sir can you hear me are you ok?” It was one of the EMTs who’d just arrived. “Sir I need you to come with me, ok? You’re in shock, you need to breathe.” Finally, James took a grasping breath in, tearing his eyes away from the other EMTs pulling out the body of a young man (probably not much younger than himself, which was a harrowing thought) and towards the woman who was speaking to him. Not trusting himself to speak he just jerked his head in a stiff nod, and followed her to one of the ambulances. 

The woman sat James down on the step into the ambulance and handed him a cup of coffee, which he accepted gratefully. As he began to sip on the (admittedly shitty) coffee, the EMT moved on to help others affected. Alone, the emotional weight of the event started to seep in even more. His eyes burned and he fought to hold back tears. The coffee slipped from violently shaking hands and splattered against the asphalt, covering his ankles and the cuffs of his pants in the hot liquid. Oblivious to the heat, james brought his shaking hands up to his head, cupping his ears against the noise as he softly began to cry. Everything was so loud. Everyone was running around, issuing orders he couldn't make out, all the words blending together into an oppressive wall of noise and movement that left him helpless, shaking and crying on the edge of the ambulance.   
He could only watch as another car drove up, and a couple -- older, hair greying, and fear so clear in their eyes it struck a chord in James -- jumped out of the vehicle as soon as it had stopped, rushing over to the body lying on a stretcher.   
Their son, his thoughts provided him with. He could only sit and stare at the proceedings as tears rolled down his cheeks, everything blurring into a cacophony of shared pain that James was unable to do anything about. His eyes tracked the man on the stretcher as he was carted off into the other ambulance-parents in tow-and watch as the doors shut behind them. It sped off, leaving James and the wreckage behind. The metal beneath him was blisteringly hot, but he couldn’t even react to it right now, eyes fixated on the spot where the ambulance just was.

The woman came back over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder, to which he started violently, thoroughly spooked. The contact pulled him back to the moment, and he furiously rubbed the tears from his face in an effort to hide the fact that he had been crying before he turned to her. Thankfully, the woman acted oblivious to the obvious red nose and puffy eyes, only patting his shoulder and saying something to him that he couldn’t really make out. He squinted at her lips, confused.

“...What?” He questioned quietly, still a little too out of it to have registered what she said. 

The woman’s eyes softened, and she repeated her words.

“I said if you wanted to you could go home how sir. You weren’t involved in the accident and you have no wounds to be taken care of, so you’re cleared to leave.”

James wanted to refute her, tell her that he was involved, that it was his fault, that he was the cause of this, but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. Guilt clawed painfully at his chest, and more tears threatened to spill from his eyes. This was all his fault. He should be detained, locked up, something, for having the audacity to step out into the road without making sure it was clear. Why couldn’t they see that?

“Sir? Do you need help getting home?” She questioned, searching his face for a reason to keep him longer. “Do we need to call someone for you?”

James shook his head and made to stand, stumbling slightly. The woman caught his arms to steady him, for which he was grateful. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. 

“No- no I’m… I’m alright.” James said, stuttering around his words a bit as he tried to get himself under control. “You don’t- you don’t have to call anyone, I can make it home fine.” To be fair, the only person he could call to help that even lived in New York was probably getting high in a back alley somewhere and would most likely refuse to help him out anyways--always more likely to laugh at him than help him when he was like this--but the EMT didn’t need to know this.

“Are you absolutely sure sir?” She looked worried.

He scowled. “I’m fine.” he growled out, pushing away from her even as his eyes burned with withheld tears, and started the trek back to his apartment, not looking back at the forlorn woman who had only wanted to help, guilt stirring ever louder in his chest.

It was a long walk back to his apartment, but eventually he had made his way down through the ever bustling streets of Brooklyn to his dingy apartment. A bright headlight flashed in his face and he flinched, recoiling and screwing his eyes shut against the offending light, as a few still frames of the crash flashed behind his eyelids. His breath caught in his throat and he struggled to get his bearings. James had been so close to death in that moment right before the crash… Damnit! Why do I have to be stuck in my head all the time! If I can’t even remember to look before crossing the road how will I remember anything in my life? He cursed at himself internally as he all but sprinted back to his apartment, desperate to be back in his quiet place away from the lights and the sound and the people. God so many people. He rounded the corner, and there it was.

The apartment building loomed ahead, all old discolored pale brick and rusting metal fire escapes, standing almost hunched beside the rest of the buildings -- like an old man in a world that’s passed him by. Almost all of the windows had cracks somewhere, others held up only by duct tape. Around the windows and anywhere it could find a place to take root, mold was taking over -- turning much of the pale brick into a sickly green-black. The whole building tended to smell of old beer, smoke and musk, but it was home for James, however much he wished he could get a new (and hopefully much cleaner) place. It seemed like every night one of the tenants was having a party in their apartment, yelling lyrics to songs he didn’t know by musicians he didn’t care about, or getting smashed on the fire escapes until they looked like they were a sip or two from toppling off the edge like humpty dumpty. Thankfully tonight the entrance was clear, free of lingering neighbors who snooped too much or sneered at him as he walked by, or assholes pissing off the edge of their windows onto any unwitting passerby below, and he was able to make his way inside without any trouble. Even Sam, his grumpy old downstairs neighbor that seemed to be smoking a cigarette every time James saw him and who absolutely reeked of death was nowhere to be found. James was grateful. There wasn’t any lobby or some such in this apartment building, or an elevator with how old it was, so he began his long trek up the old, creaking wooden stairs covered with what was at some point probably white carpet but that was stained with so many years of something that it all looked nearly brown in the yellow light, up all the way to level three, room 318. The hallway to his apartment was just as unsettling as the rest of the place, filled with dim yellow lights highlighting peeling wooden floors caked with grime, and catching on the mold creeping up the beige walls. James heard yelling from on of the doors as he passed, but he wisely ignored it. Trying to investigate or intervene would only lead to a black eye, and he was too tired regardless. All he wanted to do was to curl up on his pullout couch and sleep the night away -- if the visions of the incident from only hours before even let him rest… 

Apartment 318 was a small studio apartment that measured a little under 500 square feet, with a small (but full sized) bathroom, a bare-essentials kitchen, a closet, and a pull out couch that doubled as James’ bed. The whole room--because it could barely even be called an apartment when it was a glorified motel room--was sparsely decorated, with only a couple paintings hung here and there that James couldn’t sell and thus kept for himself, and a single photo of his friends from home. The pullout couch was a cheap, navy blue couch he’d found off craigslist with a couple of broken springs that liked to dig into his back and a tendency to stubbornly refuse to unfurl into the full bed-mode when he wanted it to. In front of the pull out couch was a coffee table he had found in a thrift store--nice oak wood with a few odd stains along the surface and sides (try as he might james was never able to get those stains out)--covered in various falling-apart sketchbooks, paint tubes and brushed, old men’s fashion and tattoo magazines (he always had wanted to get a tattoo, but those needles downright terrified him), all with his laptop sitting on top, decked out quite nicely in random stickers of old bands and geeky shit that James swears were from when he was in highschool but it’s not true. Directly next to his pullout couch is his easel that his mom had gifted him when he was starting to get more invested in art. By now you could barely see the wood anymore under all the pain splatters and little sharpie doodles from James’ various bouts of boredom. This mockery of a living room was situated nicely in front of the only window in the apartment, however James would like to say it was a nicely sized one. It was one of those old, big windows that spanned almost the surface of the entire wall and bathed his apartment in such a wonderful lighting--especially for his painting.

James would like to say that he had scored one of the nicer studio apartments in the building. There was only a little bit of mold in the shower, he hadn't seen a single mouse, and the windows were only a little bit cracked! Sure his AC only worked maybe half the time, and sputtered and whirred loudly while it did, and sure he had a bit of a cockroach problem, but didn't everyone? It was certainly better than some of the others that he'd seen here. In one of them the fridge didn't even work! James had certainly got a deal with this place. However, despite how much of a “deal” he was getting -- at $500 a month not including utilities -- he still was having a majorly hard time finding the money to actually pay rent come rent day. His problems with his anxiety and intense lapses in motivation that could last days had cost him many jobs over the course of his life. Often the fast paced, grueling atmosphere of those temporary fast-food jobs overwhelmed James, leading to shaking hands, lapses in memory on orders, and full on panic attacks that often led to his being fired. Thankfully though, his new job was at a convenience store as a stocker, which was so far much less stressful than fast food. 

Finally into his apartment, James collapsed onto the shitty pullout couch, still completely clothed, and let out a groan muffled by the mattress pressed up against his face as his stiff tired body was finally able to rest. After a few moments he lifted his head up, eyes focusing in on the easel beside his couch and the abandoned canvas on top. 

Fuck. He still had work to do.

Nope. No thank you. 

That can wait thank you very much. James dropped his head back down onto his pillow. Painting can wait until tomorrow, he would not be able to hold his head up to focus on the painting much less actually paint with how tired he is currently. Good fucking night.


	2. A Different Perspective

The morning sun was glaringly bright in Loras’s eyes as he drove into New York, making him squint and lean forward a little more than normal to try and see what he was doing. It was times like this when he wished he had actually bought some sunglasses. Someone could jump out in front of his car right now and he wouldn’t be able to see them until it was too late.   
This was seriously not ideal. 

All he had wanted to do was go see his aunt over in Brooklyn, since it was her birthday and he hadn’t seen her in quite a while. As a university student living in Boston Massachusetts, a good three and a half hours from New York, where he’d had all he’d ever need without ever having to even use a car, there was usually very little reason for Loras to need to drive to New York. He could easily walk to any grocery store or clothing store he needed to, the inspiration in the old buildings was limitless, and there was a Starbucks on nearly every corner. Sure he would make the drive once in a blue moon to watch a broadway show or for some big event his friends were going to, but aside from that he never really needed nor wanted to. But his aunt lived there, in that bustling city-that-never-sleeps, and he could never say no to her. After all, they rarely ever had time to talk much nowadays now that he was back in school. So Loras had taken his car that morning to make the long drive down to the good old Big Apple, and spend some quality time with his aunt. Looking back, Loras realized he probably should have waited until the afternoon to make the trip. Then at least the sun would be at his back, and he would have an actual chance at seeing the goddamn road signs.

It was then, as he was musing over his aunt and the stupid bright sun, some forgotten music playing from his radio, that the worst happened. Someone had stepped out in front of his car--oblivious to the world, apparently--and Loras was heading straight for them. The young man could barely formulate the word shit in his brain before his hands were violently jerking the steering wheel, and by extension the car, to the right--directly into oncoming traffic. As this happened, only milliseconds in real time but that seemed to stretch out into hours, the stranger who had stepped into the road raised their head, shock and fear and realization written into every line of their-his face. And then their eyes met, and Loras was struck still. The man’s eyes were the color of burnt umber, of the richest ochre--like a drop of pure amber or golden hour sunlight filtered through honey. A bright rich caramel he would spend hours trying to photograph if he had seen those eyes at any other moment in time. They imprinted themselves onto his soul, and he latched onto them like a leech, a lifeline, as his car rammed headfirst into another from the opposite lane who had not had the time to react to the car speeding towards them. 

Loras felt as if he were floating as his car crashed into the opposing vehicle, as if he were detached from the entire event suddenly. He saw more than felt himself jerk forward from the momentum and slam his head against the steering wheel, watched as his dashboard met the driving seat’s backrest with his body trapped in between. It was then that he realized, as he watched his body shudder as it tried to take in breaths even as one of the lungs collapsed, and as his dark hair slowly turned black from blood, that he was literally watching himself. From his perspective, Loras was still sitting there in the driver’s seat, perfectly fine. But at the same time he was looking down at his own crushed body-bleeding out and dying. Oh god he couldn’t be dying. His eyes widened and he froze, staring down in shock at the back of his own head. He couldn’t be dying. He couldn’t. A scream tore from his throat, horror and vehement denial warring within him like starving lions while he struggled to come to terms with what was happening, shaking even as his bloody and torn body sat gasping before him, unconscious and bleeding out. His terrified eyes drifted up, and met those of the stranger who’s eyes had held him moments before. And, suddenly, he wasn’t in his car anymore.

Loras found himself outside of his car, in the street, watching the horrific spectacle from the viewpoint of an observer, detached and separate from what was and is happening now before him. He couldn’t really move, just stand there and watch the black smoke rise up from his destroyed car, watch the ambulances and police cars arrive, and do nothing. Every moment of the scene stretched out into an eternity before him and all he could do was watch. Watch and stare blankly, numb with shock. Loras glanced to his side, and paused. It was him. The stranger. Loras stared at the man, scrutinizing him. Tangled brown hair brushed the tops of the man’s shoulders, framing a sharp angled face with a few weeks worth of stubble across his face and what seems like old acne scars here and there. The man wasn’t particularly tall, a little taller than Loras himself, but not terribly so. Lithe, gaunt even, those beautiful eyes carrying heavy bags as if the weight of the world was on the man’s shoulders. A small of Loras realized that at this point maybe it was to the man, as he may have just caused someone’s death, but he couldn’t hold it against the other. He was intriguing. 

He was also hyperventilating. Loras watched with furrowed brows as the man seemed to dissolve into a panic attack, and then as the woman came up to him and got him over to an ambulance. Neither seemed to notice Loras at all, which he took as evidence for the fact that he was actually having a sort of out of body experience while he was slowly bleeding out in the car only a few dozen feet in front of him. He followed after the two, moving to sit next to the shaking man. There in the opening of the ambulance, knees pulled up to his chest, he wished he could do something, anything, to help out or get back to his body or something. If nothing else he kind of just wanted to help this guy who seemed to really not be having a good day (or week if those eye bags are any indication.) Right now he just felt useless. Useless and probably (almost definitely) dying. He reached out a hand to touch the shocked man’s arm, seeing if he could possibly give comfort even if he wasn’t there, and sighed as it seemed to do nothing.

Useless.

Loras retracted his hand and snaked it around his drawn up legs again, resting his chin on his knees and drawing his eyes back over to watch the EMTs lay his broken body out on a stretcher. Seeing his own body lay there, in so much of a worse condition than before was harrowing. It sent a cold shudder through him, but he needed to see. He needed to see what had happened. 

He watched everything--watched his parents arrive and sob and scream at his body (comatose, is what he heard a paramedic say. At least it’s better than dead) then watched as they jumped into the ambulance with them. He wanted to follow, to join them as they grieved over him (watch his parents cry over his own body--isn’t that a trippy thought) but he didn’t think he could honestly deal with that at the moment. So he stayed where he sat next to this strange stranger who looked as vulnerable as he felt. He stayed where he was even as the man shambled off to his home, stayed long after everything around him was gone and he was left staring at the stain of coffee on the asphalt at his feet, and trying to ignore the similar stain of rusted red only feet away before him.


	3. The next morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James awakens the next morning to the desperate urge to paint his misfortune.

It was a rainy morning the next day in Brooklyn, a time when many city folk would only just be rising from their beds and preparing for work. But not for James. Because where many had more regular nine to five jobs than the weekend graveyard shift at a convenience store, James had his art first and foremost. And in the early morning, despite the small amount of sleep he had gotten, it was the thought of painting that had risen him. His unconscious mind had been a flurry of imagery and turmoil, piecing together the evening before into a chaotic masterpiece, and he was anxious to create. However, productivity is not an easy thing in the morning, especially for James. His tired body refused to acquiesce to his demands for wakefulness, and the rain outside his window was certainly not helping. It was pouring outside, and the grey gloom paired with the almost meditative drone of the rain was akin to a horse tranquilizer. But still, James needed to get this dream down on canvas before it was gone or else it would slip from his grasp as a slippery eel in a river, never to be seen again. And it was already fading, so he had to work quickly. Forcing his body to rise, aching and stiff from the unyielding bed--God he needed an actual mattress one of these days--He gathered his paints and his brush, and got to work.

Or at least that’s what he meant to do. James stood before the blank canvas, illuminated by the muted morning light from behind the rainclouds, paint pallet in one hand and a brush in the other, completely and utterly lost. Had the dream already faded away? No, it was still there, lurking on the edges of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to rangle it back into focus. He couldn’t find a place to start. He couldn’t focus. The longer he stood there, stock still before the easel, the louder the rain outside became, feeling more like nails on chalkboards or tiny needles poking the insides of his ear canals, and James desperately fought the urge to claw at his ears and try to block out the noise. He couldn’t think. The walls felt like they were getting closer. Were they getting closer? He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t think. Everything was wrong. Everything was always wrong.With a yell of frustration, he threw his pallet at the canvas, followed closely by his brush, before he fell into a crouch and buried his head in his knees, planting his palms over his ears to muffle the sounds as his nails dug into the skin of his scalp surrounding. The paint pallet and brush clattered to the floor, splattering the ground with a multitude of color. He would have to clean that up later, but at this moment he couldn’t find the will to care. James rocked back and forth, face scrunched up as if in agony or terror, as he tried desperately to overcome the overwhelming sensations he was experiencing. The rain pummeled the window relentlessly, compounding the loud hum of the air conditioning unit into an almost painful din. But with the sounds somewhat muffled by his hands, the pain from his fingernails digging into his skull a hand-hold to reality, James was starting to pull himself back together. His labored, shallow breaths became deeper as he worked to calm himself down, filling his lungs with much needed oxygen and soothing his racing, panicked heart.

Eventually he was able to pick himself back up from the ground, rubbing at his face as if to rub the tension and anxious frustration from the lines of his skin, and looked half-heartedly at the canvas. His eyes widened. When he had thrown the paint pallet, it had hit paint first against the canvas, spreading globs and sprays of paint across the pristine board before it had fallen to the ground. And what it had left behind honestly didn’t look bad. It was a start, at least. A start that James could work from. A small smirk bloomed across his lips, eyes flashing as inspiration took hold, and he picked up his discarded brush, finally ready to begin.

James brought his furious brushstrokes slash across the canvas with wild abandon, letting the paint fall where it may as he mindlessly strove to create. Bursts of color breathed life into the white of the canvas, blooming as explosions of color--explosions of fire and black smoke as two cars collided before him. From what was once nothing quickly became something much more. Flaming reds and soft lavenders, the darkest blacks in billowing smoke and the decay of life in stark contrast to the sunflower yellow gleaming like metal, bright flashes of green and orange and even specks of gold all coming together into something entirely new. From trauma came beauty, art from pain. All flowing together into some semblance of a masterpiece. And in that flurry of colors and in between drips of paint, something was emerging. Critics would call it a work of passion, the strokes of a man passionate with his pain, someone who could see the majesty of tragedy and the comfort of chaos, and would hail the creator as one of the greats. But in the dingy one room apartment of this poor artist living paycheck to hopeless paycheck who had never seen his work anywhere close to an exhibit--a man fueled by flashes of horrors and knife deep wounds of guilt that it was he who had caused it and it was he who had to live with the aftermath--the only word to describe this piece right now was ‘desperation.’ Desperation for life, some would say, but James would argue that it’s simply desperation for money in his pocket and food on the table. That and to get some of this terrifying event down so that it wasn’t plaguing him quite so horribly anymore.

James stepped back from the easel, panting from the exertion of his work, and stared at the result with wide eyes. Because hidden in the brush strokes, there was a face. Eyes. Eyes so intense and captivating that James felt as if he could never be able to look away. They held onto his soul, drawing him in like a curse… or a blessing - like some silent siren song he was helpless to resist. Bright pale green flecked with the orange of fire and the gold of terror of knowing one’s life was about to end. His hand moved up to touch the painting, fingers pausing only a hair’s breadth from the younger man trapped in the oils, reaching out to caress the jawline of the portrait he’d unwittingly created as if the dark scruff would scratch at his fingers if he could only hold that face in his hands. But he resisted. He’d mess it up if he touched the painting now. 

As he was observing the painting, his eyes flicked to the clock on the wall and he blanched. It was already 10 AM, nearing 11, and he still hadn’t eaten since maybe much earlier the day before, (before that horrible crash.) His stomach, voicing it’s agreement that it was high time James ate, growled and churned loudly. James took the opportunity to step away from his work and the mesmerizing eyes of the subject within it, and get something to eat. He set his pallet and brush in the coffee table and moved to rifle through his kitchen for any stray food, if he still had any, mind only half-set on the new task as the rest still lingered on his mysterious muse.

The bare-essentials kitchen was much like the rest of his apartment -- tiny. It was grungy and unkempt, almost completely barren of anything aside from a single pot, pan, and spatula, and a few unwashed dishes in the sink that James really wasn’t ready to deal with just yet. There was a single light flickering above the whole spectacle as if it was about to die out (which would be just great, he already had so little light in this place when the sun was out of sight, and he definitely didn’t have the money to replace a bulb when he couldn’t even afford to buy groceries and pay rent.) He walked to the fridge with dragging feet and cracked it open, looking into the equally dim interior for any spare food items he had. But except for the milk (he unscrewed the cap and took a whiff, immediately recoiling at the sour stench. Nope. Definitely spoiled. No thank you,) the fridge was unfortunately empty. Damnit. Letting the door close, he moved on to the cabinets, searching. The woozy nausea of forgetting to eat the entire day was getting to him. Between stressing over the fact that he needed to have a finished piece to try to sell so he could pay rent this month, and the hours he spent on the actual piece, he needed food. Stat. Finally, he found his treasure. A mostly empty box of frosted flakes. James grinned and grabbed the box from the cabinet, shutting the door behind him as he walked back to the couch to enjoy his late breakfast. 

James collapsed on the pullout couch, the broken spring digging into his lower back as he tried to get comfortable. But, inevitably, his eyes drifted over to the painting. There was just… something about it. Like an old friend he had long forgotten about, but that only his subconscious remembered. He frowned, tearing his eyes away from the piece and the mesmerizing eyes it held, focusing in on his breakfast. Quite unceremoniously, he dove his hand into the box and pulled out a good handful of the frosted flakes, shoving them into his mouth. 

Great, James thought to himself, eyeing the box, his mouth still full of sugar-coated carbs, they’re stale. He paused, before shrugging and continuing to chew. Better than nothing. However, sooner than he would have liked, he had finished the box. James grumbled as he haphazardly threw the box to his side off the couch, to lazy and burnt out to properly throw it away. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. I need to cut my hair, he thought to himself, twisting a lock of the brown strands between his fingers. It was almost to his shoulders already. As he played with the strands his hand brushed against his face and he grimaced, letting go of his hair to stroke the prickly expanse of his jaw. And shave, he added on to his earlier observation, I really need to shave.

You know, being a 20-something broke painter trying to live in fucking Brooklyn of all places is by far one of the worst goals of them all, but here James was, being a complete idiot. Ditching home for his dream life as a starving artist (sans the starving part in his dreams, of course, but it’s New York starving is in the job description) in an unfamiliar and vastly overpriced city thousands of miles from home maybe wasn’t the greatest plan, but to be entirely far, he hadn’t had all that much of a plan in the first place. He had just wanted to start over, do something new. Figure out his own life. And if that meant growing out his hair and having terrible breakdowns at least twice a week about getting evicted if he wasn’t able to pay rent on time, well then that’s how that was going to go.

A lightbulb flickered in his kitchen, and abruptly burst, resulting in a flinch and a look over to the adjoining room with a startled look as he leaned forward to get a better view. Great. Definitely broken. Now he really had to get new light bulbs. Add it to the fucking list of things he couldn’t spare the money for. He groaned loudly and eased himself back into his more relaxed position, rubbing his eyes with his hand as he tried to get everything out of his head so he could just relax. Thankfully he didn’t have work until that evening, so he could still have some modicum of relaxation before he had to truly do anything.

As James lounged there, trying to get himself to relax some and just take in the morning, his thoughts moved unbidden towards the events of yesterday. He sighed, letting his eyes slide back open to stare up at the ceiling as he began to go through the process of processing what had occurred. He’d… He’d almost died. It looks like someone else maybe did, as a direct result of his actions. God he was such a dumbass. He looked over to the canvas, to the mischievous green eyes that seemed to hold such fire and light inside them as if the owner of those eyes was as passionate as a tempest, and a face flashed in his mind. A face caked in blood, dark hair matted with grime that stained the white of the ambulance stretcher. A face expressive in it’s fear and shock as the owner made a split second decision to spare James’ life at the expense of his own. 

That was the face staring back at him through the boundaries of oils and canvas, the face he had painted without even realizing who it was he had brought forth. The one he owed his life to. A wet laugh forced itself from his throat, half crying-half laughing at this stupid, terrible coincidence. The incident was so fresh in his mind of course he would paint it. He tore his eyes away from the painting once more and looked out the window, watching blankly the bustle of the city as the cars honked and flew through the streets and crowds talked and walked animatedly amongst each other. A part of him wished to join them, to be one of the crowds and laugh and yell with everyone else, but he stayed still. He was better suited to this solitude, anyways.  
Without warning, all in the lights apartment flickered and went black in unison, and something crashed behind him. James jumped from the futon and whipped around in the direction of the noise.

"Who's there?" He called out. 

His eyes searched for the source of the noise, landing on his paper towel holder, which had fallen to the floor. Puzzlingly, the tap for his kitchen sink had also turned on, and was spraying the old unwashed dishes with water. He moved cautiously towards the kitchen, shadows intense and dark now that the only light was from the far window at the opposite end of the apartment. James tried to make his footsteps as quiet as possible as he got closer, and slowly as possible he peered over the counter top.

No one. The kitchen was entirely empty. He was alone…

Then how was the sink on?

James turned the faucet off, letting the water in the sink drain out. The dishes were a little cleaner than before, but were still definitely dirty. He stepped back and surveyed his surroundings again, looking for anything out of place, but everything was seemingly back to normal. The lights turned on-sans the one in the kitchen which truly did need to be replaced-and he let out a deep breath. Everything was fine. It was ok. Nothings wrong.

With another hesitant glance around the apartment, he went back over to the couch and sat down, tense. Every nerve in his body felt like it was on edge, and he was flinching at every little noise--every car horn that drifted up from the street below, every scratch and chitter of the rats in the walls that had been infesting the building for longer than he’s lived there.


	4. Relief

He was in an apartment, he supposes. 

How did I get here? He doesn’t know. One second Loras was standing alone in the street, the next he was standing in an apartment--run down, sparse, with cracking plaster and a flickering bulb overhead. Confused, he moved his head slowly around, eyes tracking everything as he took in his surroundings. His gaze moved over to the far side--oh wow this apartment is tiny is this literally all there is to it--and found the owner of the apartment (well room really, could a place this small really be considered an apartment? This was the size of a hotel suite he’s been in once, and in a much worse condition than that.) His eyebrows scrunched together in a frown, and his mouth opened as if to say something but Loras had no words to say. This was the man who was on the street earlier. The man’s back was to Loras, long hair obscuring his face entirely from view, but Loras had a feeling the man was tired… From what though?

How did I get here?

The man moved his head, angling it up towards something. Loras followed the movement with his eyes and his brain short-circuited. It was a painting. It was wild and furious in its creation, passionate and abstract, but more importantly there was very clearly a face inside the paint, at the forefront of the chaos. His face. Above him, the flickering lightbulb shattered, startling Loras from his shocked confusion, the tips of his ears reddening in embarrassment. 

He’d drawn me… Loras turned away from the man and the portrait, flushed and awkward suddenly even though he knew he was invisible there to the other man. He shook himself from his flustered state and continued to survey the space. He appeared to be in the kitchen area of this place, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. Everything was a freaking mess. God how did this guy live like this? Even Loras’ dorm was in better shape than this and he’s a college student! This was quite possibly the worst apartments he’s ever been inside, (though to be honest everyone’s heard of that hoarders show, so there’s definitely worse apartments out there, this isn’t too bad, but still) and Loras did not like it. Loras liked to think of himself as a neat and organized person--most of the time--so this left him pretty exasperated. 

Par the course for Loras’ pro-cleaning mentality, he--forgetting for a moment he wasn’t really corporeal--reached for the faucet to turn on the water and get at least some of the disgusting gunk off of those dishes that hopefully hadn’t cemented themselves down. But when his hand reached the handle and he tried to switch it on, he found he couldn’t move it at all. Not necessarily that his hand went through the handle like he couldn’t touch it--it was there and he could definitely feel that it was there, but it was as if he wasn’t strong enough to even be able to lift a feather. Like it was an immovable soldered down piece of metal and not a piece made to be moved by human hands. Loras frowned. He tried again, pulling at the handle with all his body weight, but it barely seemed to budge. 

Loras was getting frustrated with this damned thing. He wasn’t even focused much at all on anything else in the room, much less the man staring out the window, instead completely honed in on this one task like a magnet to metal. He had a sort of tunnel-vision for the metal handle, and inside him, something arose. His frustration pooled in his chest, raging around itself like a living whirlpool of malcontent. The air around Loras felt like static, charged with phantasmal wrath as the whirlpool grew more and more violent and excited, festering into a smoldering, inky beast of red eyes and malice. With a growl that was not all his own, he gave one more vicious pull.

And it moved.

And all the lights blinked out.

The yell from across the room startled Loras from the red haze of rage he was irrationally consumed by, the dark maelstrom settling back down in his chest and leaving him clear-headed once more. He jumped back from the faucet as if burned, his back colliding with the fridge door from just how cramped the space was. He didn’t pay much attention to that though, instead standing frozen, hunched against the refrigerator, staring at the faucet as it ran a cascade of water down over the dishes.

He’d moved it. He’d turned it on.

He could actually interact.

Loras sank to his knees and could only crack a smile and start silently laughing until tears sprang from his eyes and he was desperately trying to wipe them away despite no one being around to see because he was still real. Everything was still real. He was maybe alive or maybe dead but he could still touch. And he was too relieved to care about the dark thing that had come up at that moment, or the man before him turning off the sink faucet who was paranoid and wary of the occurrence Loras had caused, as he just sat there and smiled goofily as the grateful laughter slowly eased off into giggles and finally pleased and happy silence.

He was still real.


	5. Sadness

It was a week before he tried something like that again.

Loras glared at the glass as he rested his chin on the table. Short-nailed fingers drummed restlessly on the edge of the counter as he tried to analyze every way he could possibly come at the glass this 100,000th time to maybe, finally, get it to freaking move. But at this point, as absolutely burned out as he was, he just could not think for the life of him ( and really, was he even still alive? That’s a question Loras should probably think on later). Any thought he fought to even have slipped from his head as quickly as an eel in water, leaving his head painfully and uselessly blank. Impulsively he reached out to push at the glass, but again--absolutely god-awful fucking jack shit. His mother would kill him if she ever heard this language. A small laugh came forth from his mouth at the thought, rife with frustration and helpless semi-unhinged dumb-fuckery. Yeah, she’d kill him. Loras let himself have that small moment of relief from the frustration as his thoughts pulled him towards his mom. How must she feel right now? Where even was he, physically? He could be dead for all he knew. He could be dead and in a coffin and he would never even know he would just be here in this stupid tiny apartment for the rest of eternity with no way of knowing while he was just doing dumb shit like this trying to pass the time when the time would never pass because he would be here forever. He couldn’t be here forever. He couldn’t stay here forever. He couldn’t do this forever.  
He wanted his mom.   
For the first time in his adult life he crumpled to the floor and cried for his mom.

A while later, face red and puffy from tears, Loras sat staring blankly at the counter wall, knees pulled up weakly to his chest. He was dead, wasn’t he. He was dead, and he would never see his mom again, and he’ll be stuck here forever. He brought his hands over his tear stained face, rubbing furiously at his eyes to try and get himself out of his stupid funk as the frustration built back up from the back of his head. It built and built and burned in his throat until his he just had to scream. It tore from his throat and ripped through the still stuffy air like a torrent--a terrible conglomeration of pain and distress and horrible sadness, so rife with emotion that the lightbulb above him, that was shut off and devoid of electricity moments before, burned brighter and brighter until it burst, showering down tiny shards of glass around him. His chest heaved and he shuddered, curling in on himself once again. He couldn’t deal with this.


	6. Work

After a long, long while, he got back to his work. He was still stuck in his sorrow of the gravity of his situation now that the gravity has actually hit, but he did want to get this working.

Time passes, suitably.   
And Loras is decidedly much more frustrated than he was the first time around, however due to his early cry session he has found his thoughts to be much more clear and focused than before--but still definitely frustrated as hell.

It was only once he was so unbelievably frustrated and worn out at going at the glass from every angle again and again and again that he finally succeeded. That same feeling had come back amidst his frustrations, radiating like a furnace of hellfire, and his last hard push against the glass--instead of doing nothing--sent the glass flying across the room to shatter against the wall. A beat passed as Loras stood stock still as he realized that it had worked. And that it had actually worked well. Elated, he whooped aloud, throwing his hands into the air--still very much shocked at himself but too damn proud of himself to care.  
Only, that energy was still there, and it was enthusiastically feeding off his glee. That meant, when he threw up his hands, something happened. He didn’t even touch anything, but that radiating power, that intensity, did all the work for him, flipping the bowl on the counter off and too the kitchen floor, where it lay cracked in large shards of ceramic. Whoops.  
Loras cringed at the loud crash, but couldn’t help the grin spreading across his face, nor the small pricklings of laughter he let out. Energy like static hummed beneath his skin and he relished the feeling of it. He did it. Frustration brought it forth and his elation fueled it further. Emotion. Like the showering explosions of the lightbulbs as he wept earlier that evening. Emotion spurned it forward, if only he had enough of it to use. 

The young ghost-man-thing surveyed the apartment, taking in the destruction of his experiment. Glass littered the floor of the apartment--tiny shards around his feet from the blasted lightbulb, a larger pile by the far wall from the glass he had thrown, an almost definitely destroyed ceramic bowl in the kitchen hidden--and he wrinkled his nose. The olive tone to his face turned a few shades more pink as he realized, with growing embarrassment, that the guy who he’d been inadvertently stuck with will definitely end up seeing this mess. Shit.  
Loras chewed at his thumb nail and mused over the predicament with slightly furrowed brows. It’s not like he could realistically clean up in the time frame between then and when apartment-guy (as he was now apparently deemed) arrived back home. The excited hum of energy was already fading from his nerves, and he knew that even if he could draw it back, trying to move as many pieces as that of shattered glass would be nigh impossible even if he had a week to do the task. A huff of hair left him in a small snort, and he brought his thumb away from his mouth, bringing it down to his leg, where it tapped out a restless beat.   
After a moment he shrugged and stepped over the glass shards to the grungy futon to sit and wait for apartment-guy to show up. He really needed to learn the guy’s name.

James finally showed his face back at the apartment at nearly four that morning, and man was Loras glad that the lights were off because if he looked like that in the dark? Lord knows how terrible he looks with the lights on. Guy looks like shit.  
The younger to-be-or-not-to-be-dead guy scoots himself to the far end of the futon to make room for apartment-guy, watching as the guy didn’t even bother to do much more than shed his shirt (nice, his inner thoughts supplied him. Now’s not the time, dingus, he replied) and kick off his shoes before he collapsed to bed, asleep quicker than you could say “peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” wonderfully ignorant to all the mayhem that had just gone down in the apartment hours before. For now.   
The morning would go differently. Loras was sure it was going to be entertaining. 

Loras laid back against the armrest of the futon and relaxed, letting his eyes trail over the other man’s back without shame.   
The man wasn’t built by any means--lanky and soft, but without much pudge to be seen. But man was the guy nicely proportioned Loras mused, gazing a little lower down to the man’s narrow hips then to the nicely rounded curve of his- He pulled his gaze away with an embarrassed hint of blush. His thoughts turned frustratedly inwards, berating himself for his curiosity.  
Don’t check out the guy while he’s sleeping! Loras groaned and rolled his body off the armrest so he was laying across the futon besides James, back against the lumpy cushioning. He turned his head to watch the other man, and a part of him wanted to reach out to comb a hand through his hair. The long hair looked so soft to him, like his fingers would glide through the strands if he dared to reach out. He turned his head sharply away and threw an arm over his eyes. Hopelessly romantic bastard. He heard a shift and paused, going still. When no more movement sounded, He raised his arm from his face slightly to take a peek at the man beside him.   
He was turned towards Loras. Loras could see nearly every detail of the man’s sleeping face as the moonlight and streetlamp lights filtered in from the outside. The slight freckles across a tanned face, lips with a deep cupid's bow parted slightly as he breathed. Loras imagined those sleeping eyes, framed by dark lashes, blinking up at him as the sun rose, mouth quirking into a lazy grin and--Loras stopped himself there. Now is not the time.  
Loras forced himself to relax. His eyes drifted closed and he laid there in stillness, listening to the sounds of the city below him. With being so early in the morning, there was a startling quiet from the streets of Brooklyn that Loras assumed weren’t usually there with his concept of New York. Every few moments he could pick up the sound of a car rolling past, something clattered loudly somewhere nearby and seemed to echo eerily through the streets.   
Inside the apartment building everything was silent--or as silent as it could be. A door opened and latched shut, followed by footsteps that passed by the door to the small studio room and trailed off down the hallway. But that was all. A lingering scent of acrylic and oils drifted across Loras’ senses, coming from the forgotten paint tubes and drying canvases only a few feet away, and it made Loras somewhat nostalgic. Memories of his small childhood home rose up, images of a small dark haired kid and an equally dark haired and olive skinned woman in a beige apron and blouse sleeves rolled to her elbows--both completely covered in paint splatters and laughing with each other. Memories of his mother, of her teaching him how to paint, how to ride a bike, sitting with him and helping him with his homework--helping him study for his SATs and for his college entrance exams--helping and guiding him every step of the way to college.   
She was the one to buy him his first camera so he could take pictures of the world--something he found he loved so much more than painting that he endeavored to make a career out of it. She was there to support him. Every single step of the way.   
His soft breathing shuttered, and he screwed his eyes shut tighter. 

No. Stop that, Loras berated himself, just go to sleep. His mind was not helpful nor cooperative in the slightest.   
Unbidden, and entirely unwanted, his thoughts drifted back over to his mom, and he couldn’t help but lose himself in the memories. The memories left a bittersweet taste in his mouth, and he bit the inside of his cheek, opening his eyes as this whole ‘sleeping’ thing obviously wasn’t going to work.

But Loras wasn’t in the apartment anymore. When his eyes opened, instead of seeing up into darkness with nothing but the yellow light of the streetlamps streaming through the windows of the apartment, the ceiling was stark white panelling, and the air was stale and sterile, and as he turned his head he saw his mom.  
There she was, sitting in a chair right next to where he was, head nestled in her arm as she rested against the bed, he hand covering one that looked frail and sickly, with an IV tube poking out under her hand and trailing up to a bag of fluid on the pole near her.   
It was his hand.

He didn’t even have the time to process what he was seeing before loud beeping sounded through the room, startling the older woman from her slumber. She shouted, calling for nurses, then turned down to him, face so wrought with terror and fear for him that it clenched his heart painfully. 

He blinked.

The beeping turned to birds, calling out to each other in their morning songs with the underlying sound of car horns and chatter of the city.

Hee was back at the apartment.

His chest heaved and he could only lay there frozen, eyes wide and unblinking at the slowly lightening room. The sun was rising above the looming brick structures outside, bathing the apartment in warm yellow tones, reflecting off the glass across the floor up onto the ceiling, creating a sea of stars. But this beauty of twinkling glass stars were grey and lifeless to Loras in this state.   
He saw her. He actually saw her there, his mother, there above him, waiting for him.   
It felt so real, being there, just as real as where he was now. 

He wanted to go back. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to be there, he wanted to see her, why did he have to come back here? The young distraught man closed his eyes and tried to force himself back. Thoughts of his mother swam to the forefront in Loras’ mind, the memory of that moment so fresh in his mind that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to bring himself back to her.

No such luck, however.  
When Loras opened his eyes, he was still there in the apartment, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Damnit.” He rubbed at his face, beginning to feel the buildup of tears starting again, the rising of heat in his nose and face, the stinging of salty droplets behind his eyes, and his voice cracked on the next curse he let out.   
Why couldn’t he have stayed there, with her? Was that really just a dream, and nothing more?

Loras didn’t want to believe it. With a deep breath, he pulled his hand away from his face, turning his head over to observe his living tenant, who was still asleep. Seeing as it probably wasn’t even eight o'clock, that wasn’t a surprise. Mornings weren’t for the guy.  
Watching the other man calmed Loras from his thoughts. This guy had so much going on it seemed, and yet was able to sleep so peacefully here while Loras couldn’t even make it an hour. It amazed him.  
With a soft sigh, Loras rose up from where he was. He wasn’t going to get any sleep, he could see that now. Did he even need sleep, like this? 

That was maybe a topic to dwell on another time.

Loras stretched his arms over his head, reaching them up as if trying to touch the ceiling from his seated position. In that pose he rolled his shoulders back, feeling his spine line up as it should, and he let out a content sigh as he brought his arms down again. Nothing like a good stretch in the morning, no matter the troubles going on around you. Loras looked around the apartment. He still had a while before the other man would wake up and the amusement could begin, and he needed something to do. 

Guess he’ll find some way to entertain himself until the guy finally wakes up.


End file.
